The creditworthiness of Russians has dropped to a record in 10 years

The population's debt burden has dropped to a record in 10 years. This follows from the data of the Central Bank, which was analyzed by Izvestia. The total volume of loans to Russians has been declining for the third month in a row — by March it had fallen by 390 billion rubles. In recent years, this indicator has steadily increased — in the middle of 2023, the growth reached almost a trillion every month.

Value added: real consumer loan rates are close to 40%

Why do banks continue to raise the cost of loans even if the key rate remains unchanged

The last time the creditworthiness of Russians decreased was in April and May 2022, after the start of its development. Then the Central Bank sharply raised the key rate to 17%, which greatly reduced the demand for loans. However, then the total volume of household loans fell by only 271 billion. The indicator also decreased once in covid 2020.

The same significant drop as now was only in 2015. It reached 645 billion rubles, estimated Dmitry Gritskevich, Head of Banking and Financial Market Analysis at PSB.

He added: currently, the high key interest rate limits the growth of lending in the market.

The decline in the loan portfolio of Russians is a direct consequence of low disbursements while maintaining repayments, said Mikhail Matovnikov, head of Sberbank's Financial Analytics Center.

Read more in the exclusive Izvestia article:

To give is not to take: the creditworthiness of Russians has fallen to a record in ten years